Tariffs Italian Trade "War"
Challenge Rome, Aug. 19.
Moly Is prepared to wage © commercial war Wwith England if England wishes to take this course, declared the director of the "Giornale d'Italia, Signor Virginia Gayda, yesterday in a tery article replying to reports that semi-oMeial British circles have instructed export firms to throttle their deliveries to Ttaly.
Signor Gayda scoffs at the idea that the British attitude is based upon financial reasons and asserts that the grounds are purely political. He reveals however that a disproportion exists between the British exports to Italy which grew rapidly from 195,- }000,000 Lire during the first halt of 1937 to 369,600,000 for the same period in 1938 and the Italian exports to England which totalled 265,200,000. Lire for the same period of time. 3.8 These figures, he emphasizes, indicat? that Italy has respected the British wish and has increased her imports 491 from England but England on the other hand made no attempt to favour the Ttaflan markets in a like degree.
"Not Maly's Fault"
"It ig not Italy's fault," he pointed out, "that the clearings agreement functioned badly and now that England has definitely shown herself disinclined to follow the Italian initia tive, Italy will be compelled to resign her good Intentions and to seek other markets for goods she would otherwise have imported from England." the welter mentions coal as the prin= cipal article imported from England and declares that Germany and Poland fan, easily replace England in this Tu' throttling her exports to Italy, England is merely working to the advantage of other European countries, he states.
Tu conclusion, emphasizing his open-424] ing statement that it is not uncertainty' about Ttalian finances but polities alone that have caused the British step, the writer states that this action itself proves that all talk of commercial solidarity and importance of ternational trade relations is empty and meaningless since Italy, in spite of her campaign for self-subsistence, doubled her imports from England] while Great Britain during the same period of time progressively reduced hers from Italy.—Trans-Ocean, Mexico City, Aug. 18.
The Official Gaze{te announced fo-day that Mexican "tariffs would be lowered on September 1, thereby ending nine months of the highest tariffs in Mexico's history. Some resent tariffs amount to 500 per cent.
ordinary value.
The Government announced that continuance of the high tariffs would be unnecessary because of the devaluation of the pose following the expropriation of foreign off Iands—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.